CONCORD – Every time a NASCAR race is run at Charlotte Motor Speedway, something new happens. It’s not necessarily a visionary advance in racing arts and sciences. Sometimes it’s weird or quirky or funny.

For instance, prior to Saturday night’s Bank of America 500, someone – his name was Nik Wallenda -- found a new entrance to Victory Lane. If the trophy had been there, Wallenda might’ve been a cat burglar. After walking in mid-air – technically, he was walking on a cable – from the grandstands to a spot high above the place where race winners congregate, Wallenda, whose great-grandfather once crossed the Tallulah River Gorge in Georgia, “landed” in Victory Lane.

Imagine a race in North Carolina in which no one in North Carolina raced. A tight-wire act is serious business, but no one from the Old North State? It happened. Kannapolis’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a concussion. Bahama’s Scott Riggs couldn’t go fast enough. Thomasville’s Brian Vickers didn’t have a ride.

The realization came slowly. First word arrived that Earnhardt didn’t get a doctor’s clearance. People thought, gee, whoever heard of a race at CMS without an Earnhardt? The last time that happened was in 1979.

Then someone – it doesn’t matter who because he didn’t keep it a secret -- was looking at the lineup wondering how many North Carolina drivers were in the field, and found to his amazement that there were none.

“What in the name of Herb Thomas is going on here? Has this ever happened?”

As it turned out, NASCAR ran a race in California one time, back when Jack Kennedy was president, in which all the North Carolinians were racing, ironically, in Charlotte. Now there were no Tarheels racing in Charlotte, and they weren’t racing out west, either. There wasn’t even a Carolinian, north or south. Meanwhile, seven Californians surfed their way into the field. Next thing you know, they’ll be making salsa in New York City. All told the state had representatives of 21 states and two foreign countries.

Someone do something. Richard Childress has a couple grandsons in the hopper, working their way up through Trucks and Nationwide.

It used to be that the Carolinas accounted for about three fourths of the stock car racers who mattered, but it was a long time ago, and not many of today’s fans even know who Jim Paschal was.